Fandom. A word that many people may not have heard since they were 13, scrolling endlessly on Tumblr, searching the Super-Who-Lock or Merthur tag. However, to others fandom culture has become a centralized focus in their lives.
The term ‘fandom’ has grown in popularity on sites like Tumblr and Twitter, but it was first used in an 1896 Washington Post sports column. For those unfamiliar with the term, ‘fandoms’ are groups of people with a shared interest in one topic. This can include books, movies, music artists or TV shows. Within fandoms, there are other creatives who take inspiration from these forms of media. This has led to fanfictions over 500,000 words long (making them longer than Tolstoy’s War and Peace, fan art that has been developed into official promotional material, and even entire albums dedicated to a piece of media.
With the rise of platforms like TikTok that are largely centered around music, the phenomenon of fandom music has grown exponentially. Artists like Charlie Bennett, Elena:, J. Maya and The Whomping Willows all make music inspired by books, mythology and films. However, Chloe Ament and SAPPHIRE are two of the most notable names in the fandom music scene, creating music about Stranger Things, the Marauders Era and the Spider-Man franchise.
Chloe Ament is a 19-year-old singer-songwriter who writes about her favorite forms of fiction. She wrote her sophomore EP “Broken Bodies, Broken Hearts” about the ‘Marauders Era’ fandom. The ‘Marauders Era’ fan base is an offset of Harry Potter fans that focuses on the parents’ generation. Ament garnered a massive following on TikTok with her EP becoming a staple amongst ‘Marauders Era’ fans and amassing 2.7 million streams on Spotify. Ament describes her process as “reading books and watching movies, finding the parts in it that resonate most with the people around me, and I will write music inspired by it. In the same way that you can have a movie adaptation of a book… I try to provide a musical adaptation of the book.”
At her core, Ament is a storyteller. “Music allows this emotional, really immersive experience. So I try to find the most climactic points and really just dive into it,” she says. The singer shares the stories she is inspired by, hoping her audience interacts with media in whichever way is most authentic to them, to her it's through her music.
SAPPHIRE is a 19-year-old singer-songwriter who “turns [her] overthinking into songs.” The artist’s Stranger Things inspired singles “Eddie’s Song” and “Dear, Billy” gained a lot of attention on TikTok, amassing 1.7 million views. The singer explains she created these songs because she wanted to share her love for the media, but also, “[the songs] could connect on a deeper level, to even non-Stranger Things fans, because it's about loss, really, and grief, and a sense of guilt, and that conflict between the two.” While SAPPHIRE targets her songs to Stranger Things fans, the topics are relevant to people outside of that space who she also accommodates while she writes.
Some artists not only participate in fan bases, but are placed into these spaces. Charlie Bennett is a 22-year-old bedroom pop artist whose Instagram bio reads: “Peter Parker’s clone.” Bennett and Ament recorded the song “Stay Right Here” about Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy’s love story in The Amazing Spider-Man duology. What is most notable about this release is that Bennett is a “fan cast” for the character. Fan casting refers to members of a fandom assigning a public figure as their ideal person to portray a fictional character. Not only did Bennett create the song with the Spider-Man franchise in mind, but his fan base pictures him as that character. Bennett shares, “Honestly, there are too many [fan casts] to count at this point. In the Harry Potter fandom I’m either cast as James Potter or Remus because Remus is the one that people compare Andrew Garfield with. Then Spider-Man's another very big one that people say I should be. Also Milo from Atlantis. Those are the big three.”
While fandoms are generally viewed as supportive, they are heavily criticized by others. Both SAPPHIRE and Ament have received backlash from the wider audiences that their music has reached. “[Fan media] is always going to be teetering on the edge of whether people are going to take it well or not. But I think if people are enjoying what they're doing, they don't need to stop showing the world that because someone doesn't like it,” SAPPHIRE notes. “If I'm getting hate, I've made it. But I think that it's just a matter of letting people enjoy themselves. Life is so short and content is made to be enjoyed.” Ament adds.
There has always been a stigma surrounding fan media; cosplaying, fan expos, fan fiction and fan art have rarely been taken seriously by the general public due to the stigmatization of the ‘fangirl’ stereotype. Fan-made content is female-dominated and receives a tremendous amount of scrutiny which stems from a deep-rooted misogyny. “It's no different to dressing up at Halloween as the ghostbusters because you're a Ghostbusters fan.” SAPPHIRE explains. Artists like SAPPHIRE and Ament are breaking through this and calling out the double standards they face.
There is a rich history of art inspired by other art and fandom music is no different. This is merely the new age of art inspired by art.
Published via YourMag Volume 18 (page 58)
Comments